Thursday, July 13, 2017

If
someone asked me what I would rather have happen – a solid punch to the
gut or a glimpse into the mind of someone who was judging me, I would
gladly
accept the punch to the gut. Physical pain can be handled and forgotten
but the emotional pain that

comes from hearing negative words, even
from a stranger, is devastating and long lasting. The bruise to your
psyche you experience from some well positioned
hate words will last well beyond any physical bruise you receive. Did
you ever notice, that our brains have a funny way of cycling these
negative words on a never ending hamster wheel within our minds, often
keeping them just below the surface until you least
expect it. Words have the ability to cut a person, deeply. The hardest
thing about these cuts is that they are invisible to the naked eye,
because cuts made by words do not show to the outside world, they
settle somewhere else. They settle on your confidence,
make their home on your happiness and eat away at your ability to
believe in yourself.

All
of those hamster wheels of negativity are spinning at warp speed in my
mind right now. This is my very first blog post. Ever. Which means I am
currently
thinking of a thousand reasons why I may fail at this new venture. What
I am beginning to realize however, is that among all the negative “what
ifs” there is one positive “I can” that I am latching onto with all of
my might. Life’s a bumpy, chaotic road that
none of us have a map to. When you think about it, we are all in this
together trying to stumble through with our best foot forwards most of
the time but at the end of the day, no one, not even the most powerful
person on this chunk of space rock, has any
idea what the future holds! Really puts your problems into perspective
doesn’t it my friends? I am trying to grow personally and professionally
everyday, to surround myself with people who believe in the same
positive message that I am trying to pass on –
that you and you alone have control over the choices you make at each
of the crossroads you come to in life. You can choose to move forwards
and pursue your happiness, or stay static choosing the happiness of
others over your own. Sounds like a pretty common
sense message doesn’t it? You see, I believe that the things that
happen to us are not what make us special, they do not define who we
are. Instead, it is the choices we make at each of our crossroads and
how we choose to handle what life throws at us that
defines who we are. Everyone has gone through something terrible in
their lives and trying to compare your awful to theirs is a defeating
exercise that will only result in hurt egos and feelings. We need to
come together and realize that we are all stumbling
through this playbook called life as blindly as our neighbors and could
probably use a little help along the way.

My
life has been dedicated to believing that I had to have the answer to
everything, know how every scenario was going to play out. I spent my
life putting
others happiness before my own to the point that I created an image of
myself that I put on display to everyone while simultaneously burying my
real true self. This was so self destructive that I was causing a
critical piece of who I was to slowly die and
I didn’t even realize it. I chose things at the crossroads of my life
that made the people around me, my family and friends, happy. Why you
ask? Perhaps you should turn that question around on yourself my
friends. Have you ever put someone else’s happiness
before your own? If so, why? What was the reason for putting your
choices on the back burner and allowing someone else to decide your path
down that crossroads? Take a moment and comment below. Tell me your
story, share the decisions you have made at your
crossroads. Who knows, maybe you will see a new direction, a new road,
that you never knew existed that just might be the path you were meant
to walk on.

About the Author

Welcome to EJ’s real, crazy,
emotional, probably too honest journey. She is an everyday girl in this
everyday world trying to keep her head above water. Within the pages of this
book you will learn about the things that have broken EJ down and the
steps she is taking to build back up. You will see, that this story is written
in a unique, general, conversational voice, which was her choice. She wants you
to be able to picture yourself in her shoes, relate her trials and tribulations
to yours and see that you too can find your happiness. Even if you don’t
realize this yet, every single one of us possesses things inside of ourselves
that we didn't know were there. It took EJ’s life taking a crazy right turn and
dumping her at the lowest possible point before she could see the strength
within herself. We are not defined by what we do, we are defined by the choices
we make. EJ decided when she put pen to paper that she wanted her choices to
start defining her as strong, confident, secure and above all else, happy. So,
who am EJ? How about who she was - a self-loathing shell who put everyone
else’s happiness before her own. Herein lies a story about finding that
happiness and all of the ups and downs along the way. See who EJ was and who
she is trying to become and maybe, somewhere in there, you will find out a
little about yourself too.